Last-minute pleas persuaded the Fountain Hills Town Council to restore funding to Extended Hands Food Bank in the town's 2014-15 budget.

The council at its June 5 meeting unanimously adopted the new budget, but not before voting against a staff-recommended 20 percent cut in funding to the food bank. The recommended amount was $19,360 for the upcoming year, but the council voted to increase it to $24,200, the amount the food bank received for the current year.

"Obviously there's a need in our community for what they do," Mayor Linda Kavanagh said. "But I also see that the food bank is trying as hard as they can to raise funds. They have a fish fry every Friday, they have all volunteers that work there, and they go to the fairs and sell food."

The proposed budget included a 20 percent decrease in general-fund money for community-service contracts with the food bank, Fountain Hills Theater and the McKee Branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Scottsdale.

The reduction is necessary to help cover a $400,000 increase in public-safety costs, facility-replacement costs and an employee pay raise, Town Manager Ken Buchanan said.

During a public hearing on the proposed budget, David Iverson, the food bank's director, pleaded the "cause of the needy in Fountain Hills." The food bank serves three groups of people: the poor and needy, including the elderly on Social Security or who need assistance; the working poor; and the unemployed.

"We recently had a spike from people who were laid off or had their hours reduced," he said.

The food bank assists an average of 243 families every month, and the two main age groups are children in need and the elderly, Iverson said. Currently, the cost for assistance totals $2.63 per individual or $8 per family each month, he said.

In the meantime, the food bank is operating on half the amount the town provided several years ago, he said. The 20 percent decrease would mean the food bank would lose $400 a month to help families and individuals, he said.

"Everything has escalated and increased over the years, for fuel, rent and food," Iverson said.

Barbara Patterson Whitehead, a Fountain Hills resident, said one in five Arizonans might not know where their next meal will come from, "but we can do something in this small dot on the map we call Fountain Hills."

"Four hundred dollars a month is not that much money. You can find it," she said. "Let us be proud that Fountain Hills has a heart."

The council then approved Kavanagh's motion to restore funding in the new budget.

"We give money for things that are nice to have, like entertainment, and this is a real need for our community," she said. "It's not the time right now to turn our backs on this kind of an enterprise."

Eliminating the 20 percent decrease meant the council had to find somewhere else to cut in the new budget. Buchanan recommended the money come from the administration budget in core services.

Councilman Cecil Yates, however, made a motion to decrease the mayor and council's budget to restore funding to the food bank. The mayor and council budget for 2014-15 totals $85,058.

The 2014-15 town budget totals $44.8 million, a $3.1 million increase from the current year. It maintains the current level of services, and includes no new programs and employees.

The increase in the overall budget from the current year represents increased spending for capital-improvement projects, such as $8.2 million in voter-approved funding to reconstruct Saguaro Boulevard, $4.4 million for widening a section of Shea Boulevard and $2.5 million to relocate a fire station.

The budget also includes a 1 percent raise for all town employees effective July 1, and an additional 1.5 percent to be given on the anniversary of each worker's start of employment.